Inheritance

The roots of China’s recent boom extend deep into its imperial and communist past. But tradition’s legacy is a complicated one. To achieve modern development, China had to throw off the “yoke” of traditional society. Yet the long traditions of centralized government administration, kin-based entrepreneurism, and value placed on education and diligence prepared the Chinese well for capitalism. Despite catastrophes like the Great Leap Forward and the famine in its wake, Mao Zedong’s nation building efforts between the founding of the PRC in 1949 and the unleashing of the Cultural Revolution in 1966 laid socialist foundations for the subsequent boom. Even the disastrous, decade-long Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution contributed to the boom: By eroding public support for radical politics, the ground was cleared for a transition from revolution to reform—for new policies that were gradualist, internationalist and capitalist.

The Cultural Revolution Broke All Patterns of Restraint

The Cultural Revolution

China’s Growth is Like a Slingshot

An Opportunity to Question the Whole Existing System

Chen Ping

Executive Chairman of the Board, TideTime Group

Chen Ping is the executive chairman of the board of TideTime Group, a company primarily engaged in education, media & culture, and investment. In September 2004, TideTime Group became the single largest shareholder of Sun Sports Media and renamed the company TideTime Sun in April 2005.

Mr. Chen is also chairman of the board and CEO of TideTime Sun, which operates broadcasting, publishing, and other media-related businesses. It also holds 30 percent ownership of Sun TV, the first independent broadcaster serving Chinese audiences across Asia.

I will speak precisely. Political autocracy, various monopolies in basic infrastructure and resources, and the freedom and openness of labor intensive industries and the export processing industry, are the reasons for the success of China's 30 years of reform. Because, at this very time, the world underwent a process of globalized division of labor, and China capitalized on the opportunity. But, of course, it brought about some of the disadvantages that we experience today. There's a Laozi saying, "The good fortunes of the past might become the misfortunes of today and yesterday's misfortunes might become the good fortunes of today." So, we can say that the land reform that took place 30 years before the Reform and Opening was very brutal and unjust, there were a number of unreasonable factors behind it. But, without the land reform at the end of the 40s and 50s and the communalization later on, which was, in effect, a nationalization, how could you have had the economic reform of the past 30 years with a large amount of cheap land resources? Whatever you call it, whether a coincidence, or that generation's ambition, with the land nationalized, when reform came, the land became a low cost factor of production, it became an advantage that China had in its economic boom. At the same time, if so many peasants were still like they were thousands of years ago, with one piece of land per household, it's hard to make them give it up. So I say, the land reform and communalization was painful and maybe disastrous at the time, but it became a good basis for the 30 years of reform.